The New World

As some of you know I've spent the last few weeks gallivanting all over the US of A and had a splendid time.Met up with some old and dear friends, a lot I'd never met in person before and geeked out over a lot of comic books.

I also got to visit a lot of US comic shops and got to rifle through Superworld's warehouse and pick out some nice books.

I flew into Boston on July 2nd and spent the next few days at a friend's Summer house in New Hampshire, enjoying watersports, BBQ's, campfires and a lot of drinking. I celebrated my birthday and Independence Day and had a real relaxing time...but the best was yet to come.
After a few days I went back to Boston and met up with some of my New England friends and co-collectors. There were also two Southern boys that flew in to join us and geek out for a while.

We spent the first day eating and drinking and playing with all the high grade funny books from one of my friend's collection.
This fella, let's call him Nik, also acted as our local tour guy and drove us to the local comic book hotspots. I had also planned to pick some of those massive Treasury editions as these are way too large to send through the mail and picking them up in person was the only viable solution.
Alas NONE of the comic book stores I visited during this trip had any in stock, but Nik did and he graciously gave me a bunch of them from his personal collection.

First Comic book store I visited was Bedrock Comics and I must say that I was very impressed, as my first visit to a LCS I could have done much worse (which I later did) as this was a very nicely laid out store with a lot of back issues. Most people are under the impression that most US comic book stores are a veritable treasure trove for Golden and Silver Age books, truth is that most stores have a whole bunch of trades, a nice selection of moderns and almost no or few older back issues. But this store did but we really didn't have the time to go digging through the boxes. Still I bought my son a nice Flash action figure (the kid's a DC fan....go figure *sigh*)

Next on the tour was Ted Van Liew's warehouse. Ted is the owner/operator of Superworld comics (http://www.superworldcomics.com), one of the East Coast's bigger dealers and probably one of the nicest and coolest dealers I have ever met.He was nice enough to open up his warehouse for us and In fact I'm pretty sure despite his years of dealing and his massive inventory Ted is still more fan/collector than dealer. I spent more time yapping with him about books, original art and the hobby itself than I did going through all the boxes. Still I managed to find some SA and GA Batman books, including a Golden Age Joker cover that was one my want-list. The rest of the day was spent eating and drinking (again) and I got to spend some time with Paul who is the man responsible for bringing those cool Superhero glasses to the market (http://www.toontumblers.com)

Our tour guide had to get back to the real world the next day but my friend Andrew from Golden Age Collectibles (http://www.golden-age-collectibles.com) stepped us to the plate and true to the previous metaphor took us to Fenway Park, the oldest Major League Baseball stadium in the US where We had a blast.
After dropping of the two Southern boys at the airport Andrew and I went to one of hos favorite comic book stores, Webhead Enterprises in Wakefield MA.
Again a very nice store, massive inventory of back issues and I was happy to find three books that were on my want-list. Score ! I also picked up a few more action figures for my kids (yeah...DC again).

Andy also gave me the addresses of another few comic stores, as I was still looking for more Treasuries and wanted to find a Supergirl action figure for my daughter.So the next day I took the train into Boston center and proceeded to walk a little over 4 miles visiting all the shops that were on my list.

First went down to Cambridge, went to The Million Year Picnic , nothing from my list, no treasuries, no Supergirl figure.
Then WALKED to Kenmore and the Comicopia store...They didn't have a single book older than 6 months and no Supergirl action figure...but the owner was super nice, I didn't spend a dime and told him I was looking for that figure for my little girl and he gave me a free Supergirl sticker and a free Supergirl comic he had left from FCBD, he also called two other shops to find out if they had any Supergirl AFs...but nothing.
Really sweet guy, I wished he had anything I wanted so I could spend some cash with him.

As I had walked that far, I walked a little longer to Newbury comics and bought one of Paul's Captain America Toon Tumblers there for my buddy and again no backissues and no Supergirl, but I did get sweet Poison Ivy action figure which she will like as well.

I was so hot from the 3 hours of walking in the sun I walked into a nice cool Apple store and enjoyed the AC for 15 minutes and tried one of the new Mac books to read my mail.

You may have noticed that there are no scans of the books, what I did this time was make a quick movie featuring all the comics I brought back from the US and put it up on my youtube channel. Here it is, of course if you click on it you will be take to the channel where you can watch it in HD, which as always is the best way to see more detail.






I had a blast during the Boston part of my trip and would like to thank my friends from the bottom of my heart for making it possible.

Nik : I want to thank you for opening up your lovely house for us,letting us hang in your basement and playing with your toys.Also thanks for the Treasuries and driving me all over the Boston area, I really appreciated it, plus you taught me a whole new batch of cuss-words which I can use in traffic when I get home.

Dick Pontoon : thanks for getting me 38 lbs of supplies and driving me all over the place, giving me the revelation that life is short (after said drives) and I need to fully enjoy while I can. Give my regards to your car ; "Christine"

GACollectibles : Andy I was a pleasure to meet you and a blast to hang out.
I enjoyed your stories and am looking forward to hearing the point to most of them some day. Thanks not only for taking us to Fenway Park and driving me to those comic book stores, but mostly because you volunteered to ride in Pontoon's car so I didn't have to anymore. Sorry she ate your keys

Silverandbronze : Paul good yapping to you about all things important and fun, we only met up the one day but had a cool time.

And then last by not means least... my buddies from down South.
Arex after all those years of mails and PMs I was great to finally meet and be on the receiving end of one of those bear-hugs. Happy to say my ribs are only sprained and not cracked as we first feared. I was good to finally thank you for taking care of my books all those years. Keep on rocking coach.

DrWatson : Thanks for the doughnuts
It was a pleasure hanging out with you Jim, picking up the little nuggets of "Ancient Tennessee Wisdom". You were smaller than I expected but your sense of smell makes up for that...just work on your sense of fashion (think green, think shoes) and I'm sure you'll be alright.